Second place winner: Rod Jarmin
Third place winner: John Tubbs’s Saddlebags Dragonfly
First place winner: Tom Cadwalader’s Flower
Deb Nesbitt
The Photo Club of Quail Creek (PCQC) hosted the March photo contest with the theme of color. Eligible photos are any taken within the last three years with minimal post processing.
First place was awarded to Tom Cadwalader for Flower. He shared a great story behind this flower. When this hibiscus plant was brought home, they intended to put it in the large piece of pottery which was on order but had not arrived. While waiting for the pottery, a critter, most likely a javelina, decimated it. The blooms and almost all the leaves were gone. Tom’s wife brought what was left of the plant indoors and nursed it back to health. This was the first bloom. To get the shot, Tom used a 40-150mm zoom with two extension tubes between the lens and the Olympus E-M1 Mark III camera body. This allowed him to focus on the flower while inches from the subject. The camera was mounted on a focus rail that was then secured to a tripod. To get the flower in sharp focus, he used focus stacking. This feature takes a certain number of images (15 in this case), with each image having a slightly different focus point. The camera then merges the images together and creates a jpeg image with all of the subject in focus. All of this happens with one click of the shutter. He also used a reflector to get the sunlight to cover the subject. Other shot parameters: 1/15 sec, f/8 for depth of field, ISO 200, and a focal length of 97.0 mm.
Second place went to Rod Jarmin for the shot of a purple tulip taken in 2019 while on a river cruise that included Amsterdam, Netherlands. It was there, on a tour of the tulip fields during the annual Keukenhof celebration, that he got this beautiful shot, as there were vast fields of tulips of every type, color, shape, and size. Shooting parameters for his Panasonic DMC included f/4, shutter speed of 1/250 second, focal length of 10.5MM, and ISO 100.
John Tubbs took third with Saddlebags Dragonfly. John shared that this shot was taken last summer at Canoa Ranch, which has quite a few species of dragonflies and damselflies. He enjoys photographing wildlife, and dragonflies are a challenge because they fly quite fast and often do not pause to rest. He said, “I was fortunate to find this dragonfly in great lighting conditions and was lucky enough to get a good shot.” This detailed dragonfly was captured using a Sony ILCE-7RM4. Shooting parameters included f/9, 1/640 second, focal length of 400 MM, and ISO 800.
The Photography Club of Quail Creek sponsors several opportunities for club members, such as monthly and quarterly photo contests, field trips, access to extensive photography resources, and timely presentations during our monthly meetings. Please consult our website, www.pcqc.org, and the HOA What’s Happening for additional information. You can also view group photos on Flickr.